Charlotte's mother had instructed her to prepare her great-aunt Millicent Lyons's house for sale. It stood in one of the pretty south-eastern villages that bordered Arenosa, and had been empty since Millicent's death twenty years earlier.
Charlotte had offered Will to take any furniture that he wanted before the Lyons Estate auctioned the rest, but he'd refused. Charlotte had begged, saying that none of it was to Guillermo's tastes. I took that to mean that Guillermo wanted ex-Lyons property in his home as much as Will did. Charlotte had eventually persuaded Will to drive out to the house to take a look at a mysterious item of furniture that she was convinced that he'd fall in love with, and he'd finally relented.
Charlotte's car was already in the drive when we parked up at Millicent Lyons's house, a crumbling cube of whitewashed stone and long-dead palm trees in an acre of weed-infested gardens. She led us through the maze of corridors toward the west end of the house, the air charged with that same ripe moldy smell that had permeated Will's apartment in Maria.
Except that it hadn't been Will's apartment. It had belonged to Clarabel Lyons, Millicent Lyons's sister. Did all members of the Lyons family own a derelict house or two?
The furniture of the house was in a far better state than the creaking chairs and half-collapsed sofa in Will's old apartment. I peeked under dustsheets at delicate lacquered tables and floral-patterned sofas as we wandered through the rooms in Charlotte's wake.
Charlotte funneled us along a dim corridor toward a room with glass doors at the far end of the house, its interior hidden from us by thick white drapes. After long minutes of picking through a colossal bunch of keys, she clicked a golden key into the lock, and threw the doors open.
We stepped into an airy sunroom, just like Will's sunroom in Santa Elena, but four times the size. Floral wallpaper peeled from the walls, which were lined with narrow sofas. The huge west-facing set of windows opened into what was left of an ornamental rock garden. In the middle of the room stood the mystery item of furniture that Charlotte had wanted to show us.
My heart began to thump in my ears. I could see its pale legs on tiny black casters, peeking out from under a padded dustsheet. A grand piano.
It took all my strength not to lunge forward, rip away the dustsheet and play, untuned and all, for hours and hours until my hands hurt.
Charlotte gestured to Will to go check out the wondrous thing sitting in the middle of the room. "It's all yours."
Will stood frozen at the sunroom doors, his face unnaturally still. Not even his eyebrows were moving.
Charlotte's smile faltered. "Well?"
"Charlotte, I can't..." Will whispered.
"It's going to be auctioned if you don't take it."
"Give it to Sabrina." Will stalked back into the corridor.
"I can't. Guillermo won't have it in the house," she pleaded, tottering after him. "Please take it."
Will held minutely-shaking fingers over his chest, his forehead suddenly dotted with beads of sweat. Charlotte turned to me with a wounded expression, unsure of how she'd upset her little brother.
He needs you, Zeph.
"Charlotte, can you give us a second?" I sent a silent prayer to Santa Maria that Will's fibroma wasn't gonna make him stop breathing again.
"Of course. I'll give the girls a call to say when I'll be back." She looked at me with begging eyes, a plea to fix things with Will, before hurrying away along the corridor.
Will let me guide him into the room without protest, but kept his eyes away from the covered piano. "I'm sorry. It's just...I recognize that piano. William...he liked that I played piano. He promised to bring this piano to Maria for me when he married my Mom. To the new apartment we were supposed to move into...after we left Clarabel Lyons's place. But they never got married. So we never left there. So the piano never came."
The fucking shibal-seki coward Senator. How many more ways was he gonna hurt Will?
"Are you sure it's the same piano?"
I crept over to the mound under the dustsheet. Will looked pained, but gave a little nod for me to go on.
Courage, Will.
"William said it was a parlor grand piano in pale wood. Sitting there forgotten. In an old house in Arenosa that the Lyons family didn't use anymore. That piano looks like it has a maple finish. It's pale. It's the same piano."
A slow drag on the dustsheet, and it rippled away to the floor. My breath caught in my throat.
In front of me was the most heart-stoppingly beautiful piano I'd ever seen. It had a bird's eye maple finish, golden-brown, like the sand on Santa Elena Beach, so polished that I could see my face in it. Intricate marquetry of tiny white blossom was inlaid all over the legs, rim and lid.
A Bösendorfer Vienna Concert piano, a little smaller than the concert grands I'd seen in Youtube videos. Perfect for a parlor recital, but equally as good in a small concert hall. It was stunning.
I walked around it once, and then again, wanting to drink in its impossible beauty from every angle. My heart thudded painfully as I circled; I couldn't tear my eyes away. I'd never seen such a unique piano. All the grand pianos I'd ever seen had been black. Black lids, black music desks, black casters.
I traced trembling fingers over the white spray of blossom marquetry on the rim, and with a thrill that threatened to take my breath again, I gently hitched the lid open and slid the prop in place. It moved silently with well-oiled ease, as if it had been played the day before, not hidden under a dustsheet for twenty years.
"You like it, Zeph?"
Will startled me from my adoration. He didn't look so haunted, and a little smile had settled on his lips.
I stepped away from the piano, wishing that I could will my heart to stop beating so loudly.
"It's OK, I guess." Trying to hide it from Will was futile after he'd watched me walk circles around the piano helplessly, like I'd been worshiping an idol. "We'll tell Charlotte we don't want it. There are so many bad memories for you," I said, unable to drag my eyes from the fallboard, which was dotted with the same exquisite white blossom as on the lid. "It wouldn't fit in the sunroom anyways."
I wondered how much money the Lyons Estate would make from such a Bösendorfer when it was finally auctioned, then forced the thought from my mind in case my heart would break. One quick lift of the fallboard to gaze at the keys before saying goodbye, then I stepped away from the piano and turned back toward the corridor.
"Will you play it, Zeph?"
I spun around on my heels, searching Will's face. Will's voice had returned to a warm rumble, and the color had bled back to his cheeks.
Did Will really want me to play the piano that he'd been missing for sixteen years? The piano that represented every broken promise that the Senator had made him and Mozhgan? He'd felt such acute pain when he'd recognized it. I couldn't hurt him more. And did I even wanna play the most perfect piano that I'd never see again, and be thinking about for the rest of my life?
"It's not tuned. I can't play it."
I turned away toward the corridor; if I couldn't see the piano I'd stop feeling so desperate to play it that my hands burned.
Will stepped forward, pulling the dustsheet off the piano stool, a pretty thing in matching bird's eye maple with a dark green velvet cushion.
"Please." He patted the stool as an order for me to sit. "Please, Zeph."
The piano reeled me in like its great strings were attached to my heart, and I found myself sitting on the pretty stool. I begged Santa Maria that it would sound awful, that the soundboard wouldn't carry the waves, that the strings would vibrate in dissonance for each chord, that they'd snap completely. Anything to make me love the piano less madly than I already did. But I knew, deep down in my racing heart, that it would sound magical.
The fallboard rose with a crisp click into place. My heart beat faster. The keys were wide and brightly polished, ready for me. My first thought was to play something technical which tested the breadth of the piano's range and pedals, but I stopped myself.
This piano had been for Will. And Charlotte had brought us here for Will. This was all for Will. I looked up at him to ask what he wanted me to play, but he looked so fragile then, watching me with those huge sad eyes. Perhaps he was imagining what it would have been like to be sixteen and living in a bright new apartment with his parents finally married, playing on a beautiful pale Bösendorfer V.C..
I wanted to play something that he hadn't heard me play before, with tonal shifts that he'd like, and that would mask the fact that this piano was probably more than a semi-tone flat after sitting in a sunroom for decades. More importantly, I wanted to play something that would wash away Will's old, painful memories and replace them with new, good ones. I warmed my fingers with a few scales and arpeggios, testing the tuning. I was right; it was pretty flat, but I didn't care, and I knew that Will wouldn't. Then I played arabesque one[1].
The piece started in E major, triad after triad in a descending pentatonic progression. I knew that Will would adore the ever-shifting harmony from his years of listening to jazz. I played what parts of the piece I knew from memory, the rest only coming to view in my mind when I was one bar away. I'd played arabesque so rarely in Seven, telling myself that it was too easy, but in truth I was never in the mood to play something as breezy and light when I was in Sigma's shadow.
Despite needing tuning, the piano responded beautifully to me, the tone sweet and sparkling, like nothing I'd heard before. I held the left-hand arpeggio just slower than andante, wanting to make it last, as the piece beat back and forth between E major and C sharp, like waves crashing on the beach.
I eventually remembered the melody by imagining the curves of the pale piano itself, the white blossom curling and looping across the lid in playful arabesques, growing and shrinking but going nowhere. The piano's attack gave bright accents on the notes in the melody, the pedals ran with a tinkling pianissimo. I'd forgotten the coda, and played earlier bars until I finally remembered it, an intricate melody and a change in key back home to E major.
Eyes closed, I let the waveforms on the strings die. Of course the piano sounded perfect. Of course it was the most painfully beautiful thing I'd ever experienced. Of course I'd have to leave it there, and go back to Will's digital keyboard at home.
I opened my eyes to see Charlotte watching me from the glass doors. Will was gazing at me like he was in a trance, fire burning in his eyes like veins of gold shining out of black ore. Then, he seemed to snap out of it. He wrestled his tape measure from his jeans and unfurled it, maneuvering around me with a sudden rush of industry as he set about measuring the length of the piano, checking the screws on the piano legs, testing the hinges on the lid.
I turned my head like an owl as I sat at the piano stool, following Will as he hopped around the room typing the piano's dimensions into his phone. "What are you doing?"
"Checking how to move it."
"Move it? Where?"
"It's two meters long. It'll fit in the sunroom if we move the sofa out."
My heart trembled in my chest. "The...the sunroom?"
Will grinned at me, like the bad memories were all washed away from his mind, and all he was seeing was his buddy Zeph playing a trippy piece on a new piano. He turned to Charlotte. "Thank you. I love it."
Charlotte threw her arms around Will, laughter pouring out of her.
They spent the next half hour discussing delivery, piano technicians, tuning times, room design. I took the chance to test the piano, playing scales over eight octaves prestissimo, practicing arpeggios with the pedals, messing with attack strength on the keys, until it was time to go home for dinner. I wished I could camp out at Millicent Lyons's house for a week until the piano movers brought it to Santa Elena.
We drove home in silence, the feel of the maple still under my fingertips, the sound of the strings still sparkling in my ears, like my mind was assembling an entire new brain-shelf especially for the piano.
After eating dinner in ten seconds flat, I launched into a grueling practice session, eventually dozing off in my usual basking spot under the keyboard, which, now I'd played a Bösendorfer, had felt like playing a brick.
"Zeph?"
I blinked awake. Huge upside-down eyes looked down at me, crinkling at their corners with a smile.
"I need to stop chilling down there." I stood up groggily from my makeshift pillow of staff paper and method books. "I'm going to bed."
"Come to the beach real quick. I haven't been all week." Will beckoned me through the porch doors and we headed toward the darkening waves.
The evening sky was still a wash of purple at the horizon as we sat with our elbows on our knees on the rocks on the northern edge of the beach. As loud as the ocean sounded on this wild and windswept end of the beach, it wasn't loud enough to drown out the buzz of my thought-strings.
A few minutes with my eyes closed, and the ocean's heartbeat set the vibrating strings in my mind in phase, allowing me to pick out individual worries from the morass of tangled thoughts. The new piano, which I loved but Will hated. The news that Jules was gonna buy Lars's company, which filled me with dread.
Will looked across at me with a creased brow. "You OK?"
"Yeah. You sure you're OK about that piano?"
"Zeph. I watched you play it. I could never let it be auctioned after that. You were so..."
"But it hurt you so much to see it. It brought back such bad memories."
Will idly lifted handfuls of sand and let them be carried away by the wind toward the cliff face. "I need some new memories," he shrugged.
When the piano arrived in a few days' time, we'd see quite how good Will was at making new memories. If seeing the piano upset him, I'd just apologize to Charlotte and I'd keep it covered until it could be auctioned. I wouldn't even look at it.
My thought-strings still buzzed insistently through my skull. "I didn't feel well at the Studio today."
Will stopped lifting sand and turned toward me. "What happened?"
"Lars Eriksen is selling FlowYoga to Jules, and moving to Arenosa to manage it with her."
"What?" Will's eyebrows jumped in alarm. "Does he love her?"
"Maybe." I knew that he didn't.
"What's he like?"
"He's OK, I guess. Kinda quiet. I mean..."
I couldn't explain it. There wasn't anything really wrong with Lars. Quiet didn't describe him either, at least, he didn't have that charming mixture of timid and gregarious, like Will had. Lars was just...not present. I felt like I could know him for years and never find out a single thing about him. Perhaps Jules felt the same.
"Lars is...not interested in Jules's life. He was on his phone the whole time. He was in a bad mood and didn't wanna talk to us. Maybe it wasn't a good time to meet. I'm probably being too hard on him."
Will sat stroking his beard, looking out at the blackening horizon. "Zeph, if you were at a party, in the place where you were gonna spend the rest of your life, with the person you'd just offered to spend your life with, would you be pissed and on your phone the whole time?"
I couldn't imagine being anywhere other than Busan for the rest of my life. Maybe Seoul. Maybe even Daegu. But the thought of being with someone forever, and announcing it together at a party with our friends? My heart began to soar the more I explored the wonderful fantasy. All of the delicious dizzying emotion washed over me, thick and sweet.
But I couldn't conjure up an image of that perfect man in my mind. I'd expected a fuzzy Noah-like apparition to float into my daydreams as it had always done, for want of someone better and more deserving. But I was so dead inside that nobody appeared. All the feelings tumbled over me like waves in the surf, making my heart beat madly, but with no vision of a lover to hang them on. Not even some hot actor from a K-drama as a wishful placeholder.
Will was gazing at me, still expecting an answer. I swallowed painfully, my heart pounding on. "If I was at a party with the guy I was gonna be with forever, it would be the best day of my life. I'd be fuc-. I'd be really happy. I'd wanna bore the hell outta everyone at the party by talking about him."
Will burst into laughter. My heart was raw and exposed to him, and he was laughing at me.
"What's so funny?"
"I'm sorry. I wasn't laughing at what you said. I agree with you. It would be the best party ever. It's just...you can swear when you're with me. I don't care. I'm not Charlotte or Sabrina."
"I know that. But I need to practice not swearing with somebody. Besides, it'll help me expand my vocabulary."
Will smiled at the black waves crashing mezzo-forte. "Your English is already way better than mine, Zeph. You don't need any more vocabulary."
"I know that too. I just wanna be intelligentissimo."
Will chuckled, a warm rumble that was carried away by the breezes on the beach. "You feeling better?" he asked, reaching over and tapping at my temple with his fingertips. "You got any more worries stuck in there?"
I closed my eyes. All my thought-strings were untangled and humming in resonance. Apart from one persistent worry that throbbed at the back of my mind. Will's fibroma was gonna be cut out in a week's time.
"I'm worried about your surgery."
He smiled at me. A sad little Will-smile. "You never have to worry about me, Zeph. I'll be OK."
I smiled back at Will, shaking my head at the very idea of not worrying about him. That was asking the impossible. In six weeks we'd been through too much together to not worry about each other. Six of what felt like the longest, and at the same time the shortest, weeks of my life.
Will carried on with his game of letting sand pour out of his hands and into the breeze, as I lay back and breathed with the ocean.
Author's Notes:
[1] Arabesque one: Part 1 of "Deux Arabesques," Claude Debussy, 1888